Description

In the enchanted underwater City of Glass, what will you sacrifice for immortality? Love, memories, freedom? Will you take freedom from others to win your heart's desire? Dive into a world of mermaids, mermen, and other merfolk, where every character has secrets, and nothing is what it seems!

"The Sea Eternal" is an epic interactive fantasy novel by Lynnea Glasser, author of "Creatures Such as We" and "Coloratura," winner of the 2013 Interactive Fiction Competition and numerous XYZZY awards. Your choices control the story. It's entirely text-based--283,000 words, without graphics or sound effects--and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

The whales have granted the merfolk eternal life, and asked you for so little in return. Defense against the giant squid. Secrecy from humans. But when a rogue mermaid tries to destroy the gift of immortality, ancient secrets rise from the depths, and the delicate balance of society rests in your hands.

Will you fight to protect your immortality, or surrender it for a higher cause? Will you choose sides in the neverending war between the whales and the giant squid? Will your undying love save the City of Glass, or destroy it?

• Decide what being a hero means to you, with over 10 unique endings• Choose your own mer-self, with multiple gender and orientation options available• Play alongside similarly diverse characters• Romance human visitors to the underwater city• Earn the trust of nuanced characters• Break their trust• Pick up the pieces of your shattered relationships

My review

Review from

Reviews

3.9

370 total

5 168

4 88

3 60

2 25

1 29

God Effect

Ah! I loved this so much! Then I reached the end of the free content 😭 biggest cliffhanger ever! Isn't adds enough though? I mean all the adds would amount up to the 5 dollars you have to spend to get the rest of the game right? I mean I could deal with ads every chapter knowing I get the whole story. Don't get me wrong though, I frekken love all Choice Of's work, I have most of your games and I remember playing Choice Of Vampire many years ago. You're very talented Choice Of, and I love it! Just please don't cliff hanger us 😭 Thank you for all your work!!

It has pros and cons. Good thing is that it's beautiful, has multiple choices for gender and plenty of romance options, plus beautiful descriptions and characters that are quite in depth. However, sometimes I feel as though the choices I make are not all that impact full and that rings strongly with me. Still, I think it's a great game. Just not so worth the high price tag. Won't recommend to friends.

Lisa Price

The story could have been writin better. I found it kind of boring and the choices you have to chose from are not the greatest either. I will not be spending the $5.00 to get the rest of the story.

Mladen Fernežir

Where to start? I ignored the warnings in other reviews and bought the game. It's after the free part where it really gets bad. In many parts it feels like one view political propaganda rather than a game of choice. You get stuck in author's point of view and have to listen through the monologues, without being able to really challenge it. For example, you don't get to ask how come it is okay to destroy the immortality of an entire race to prevent personal hardships. And then of course, you get plenty of political agenda about race or gender that doesn't really fit into the story. Again, the main problem is that you don't get to challenge character's actions. So you want to change gender? Fine. But what about you being dishonest to your partner that brought you here? You don't get to ask that. I've played a couple of cool choice of games and I enjoyed the "Creatures Such as We" from the same author, but this one is a disappointing and definite "no, I would not recommend it to a friend".

hack pantera

I actually like it and others in the series..just wish that you didn't have to pay to play the entire game.

Silver Vampire

The game is nice and the story has a lot of potential, but the endings are rather poor. Not the pennies worth.

User reviews

God Effect June 16, 2017

Ah! I loved this so much! Then I reached the end of the free content 😭 biggest cliffhanger ever! Isn't adds enough though? I mean all the adds would amount up to the 5 dollars you have to spend to get the rest of the game right? I mean I could deal with ads every chapter knowing I get the whole story. Don't get me wrong though, I frekken love all Choice Of's work, I have most of your games and I remember playing Choice Of Vampire many years ago. You're very talented Choice Of, and I love it! Just please don't cliff hanger us 😭 Thank you for all your work!!

It has pros and cons. Good thing is that it's beautiful, has multiple choices for gender and plenty of romance options, plus beautiful descriptions and characters that are quite in depth. However, sometimes I feel as though the choices I make are not all that impact full and that rings strongly with me. Still, I think it's a great game. Just not so worth the high price tag. Won't recommend to friends.

Where to start? I ignored the warnings in other reviews and bought the game. It's after the free part where it really gets bad. In many parts it feels like one view political propaganda rather than a game of choice. You get stuck in author's point of view and have to listen through the monologues, without being able to really challenge it. For example, you don't get to ask how come it is okay to destroy the immortality of an entire race to prevent personal hardships. And then of course, you get plenty of political agenda about race or gender that doesn't really fit into the story. Again, the main problem is that you don't get to challenge character's actions. So you want to change gender? Fine. But what about you being dishonest to your partner that brought you here? You don't get to ask that. I've played a couple of cool choice of games and I enjoyed the "Creatures Such as We" from the same author, but this one is a disappointing and definite "no, I would not recommend it to a friend".

Ever wished you were a mermaid? Ever wanted to identify as a different gender or different sexual orientation? You can do all of those when you dive deep into this rich fantasy world with ancient history and secrets to uncover. Characters have depth and relatable struggles. Multiple storylines will keep you engaged and wanting more. This is one choose your adventure story that you won't want to miss!

It's surreal. The story has multiple arcs, but some of my choices aren't really that impactful. I really like the multiple romance choices and being able to do different things that can vastly change what happens to me in the end. But... there's really so much more to the story. I'm willing to pay again to buy a continuation of this immense potential, if there is.

Great idea Overall the story was an exceptional idea. I've never heard or read a story remotely close to this. Lynnea Glasser won my heart with "Creatures Such as we." She has a knack for trying ideas that most writers would find challenging. I do wish her stories were longer because I could never get enough, however I appreciate the time and research that does go into her stories.

Very different than other games. The stats don't matter. Fights don't matter. Understanding yourself and your place in society? That matters. A haunting, emotional journey. Not sure I enjoyed it but definitely intruiging. Also only game I have seen that handles gender transitioning well.

I like it I like the story and I really want to get the next half of it, if anything, to know what happens next. Unfortunately Google wallet has decided to show the price in dollars and simultaneously decided that my country doesn't deal in dollars either... when it does! So, I'm disappointed but hoping the issue is resolved soon.

Lackluster writing Short. I couldn't bring myself to care about the world, and I disliked how the philosophical ideas were presented. Compared to other games by this publisher or hosted by Choice of Games, this would be a waste of time. Some of others deserve your money more, like Samurai of Hyuga

Absolutely adore this game Just like creatures like us this is a game that has almost all the things I want from a good story. Only thing I wish for besides what was offered is for one to be able to write in pronouns manually just like with gender, and to be able to have non-monogamous relationships. I would have loved to get together with both my ex and the new human.

Can't Say Enough About This Game! Really, really stellar story. Great balance between moving the plot forward and engagement with ideas about the nature of life and other philosophical questions. Absolutely worth it to pay for the entire story. I've played through twice with drastically different storylines and will play through several more times. Well-done!

I like the idea of it more than the game itself. Wanted to explore the merfolk world more not just babysit humans though. Ending was very abrupt. Bored totally by the humans. If I could have not been relentlessly steered back to dealing with them all the time I might have liked them more. I was much more interested in the world, the species politics, immortality, the histories, even the MCs job, but no, babysit the humans. Bleh.

Probably one of the best text based games I've played. Overall it's of a very good quality but it could easily have been a little longer, as it sometimes felt a little rushed. Still a great game, and unlike others of the type there is replay value (although Metahuman is definitely a better game, in my opinion.)

Free Chapters Great/Ending is Stale and Forced I'll admit that this is not the usual story I go for, but I gave it a chance. I ended loving the first five free chapters and was left wanting to know what happens next. I mulled over whether to buy the rest or not for a couple of days, read reveiws and the warnings. I took a chance, but now I'm left wishing I hadn't and just left my own imagination to come up with conclusions. This didn't feel like a story about 'my' character. It was just a story with a string of forced messages I could choose from. Meh.

I'm Insulted It's a nice game, but before much of the plot was developed it sort of just swooped in there and pushed in a bunch of about how "all Whites are racist" and "Whites can't change." I found it insulting! We're supposed to be trying to move past racism, but that won't happen if people keep accusing us of being racist! I'm sorry, I just couldn't get myself to read any more.

Interesting but heavy on propaganda The story is fine and the setting interesting. Specially if you like fantasy or imaginary worlds. Unfortunately full of unnecessary textbook SJW propaganda. Feels like they tried too cram as many social justice lessons as they could and then some more. Anyways the story is still good and the author is entitled to preach whatever crap she/he wants. So if you're open minded (like myself :D) or happen to follow the same incoherent ideology as the author you should be perfectly able to enjoy it. I liked it!

respectful I can play it with my own gender and pronoun, itwatered my eyes. The game story and world itself it's a belief of fantasy creatures on our world, and I'm all about it. I can't wait to buy the full version, loving it too much.

There could have been more There's always this issue with choice games where they rush it. This felt rushed. It could have gone way deeper than it did, but it didn't. It even chose to put alot of social justice sorta stuff without committing themselves to writing it fully. I wanted to bond with Faye, but the writer just rushed over the talk of transition, it made it feel like the only trait to them was them changing their gender. And then relationships. I was interested at first, but nope. Glossed over romance.

Unncessary left wing propagabda Has potential, but far-leftist and SJW propaganda was crowbarred into the story. The start of the story tackles concepts such as gender identity and racism (with an undercurrent that white people are racist). While these issues are important and need to be handled sensitively in real life, they don't fit in the setting of this story. This platform should be used as a form of entertainment, not to impose a political agenda onto the reader, especially if they are required to pay to unlock the whole story.

Could have been better. The writing was great but the characters very rarely clashed. Everyone had a common goal, making conflict between characters rare. In short, it was kind of boring. However, the story was very trans* inclusive. As a trans man, this was very uplifting to see.

Wonderful and flexible story! I started playing it, hit the paywall, and barely even paused to throw my money at it, then immediately replayed it... Super good & interesting, with VERY widely divergent paths.

I did like it. Not going to lie though, I was disappointed by my ending. Wasn't exactly what I thought it would be and there was a lack of romance too. It was also a bit too, I suppose, stressful at times? As much as social issues are important, I just didn't want to read about it. I deal with this stuff in my daily life and sometimes you just need a break from these issues and want to emerge yourself into a different reality. It is great that they were being raised, that's just my personal take on it.

Complex and ethically fascinating This game is very engrossing, it has a lot of character interaction and asked several ethical questions as well as asking if you really know what's going on or if the reality that you are facing is merely a telepathic jail. I very much enjoyed playing this!

The story was very engaging and honestly, I feel like I might know myself a little bit better after playing it. It def pushed some of my "terrified by the notion of being trapped inside/losing my own mind" buttons pretty hard, but I think that's a pretty good indication of how good the writing and overall concept is.

The story kept building to something greater, but never really delivered. It had and explored a lot of interesting ideas, but it ended before the central plot as a whole could be realized. It's different from most other things I've read, so it might be worth your time and money just for that, but if you want a proper narrative experience, you won't find it here.

Fee It's an amazing story you can get lost in but that being said, you shouldn't have something that's free and then say "ope nope, yah gotta pay." And if you are going to do that you should at least tell people this before they download this.

It had potential This story has potential, but so much of it is unexplored. A lot of philosophical and social issues are raised. Which is good, but it tries to go through so many and tries to rush so quickly through the plot that the characters become one sided attempts to push the message and little else. There was so much that was unexplored, and the constant "what does this mean" or "is this wort it" without trying to give it much actual significance to the story felt too preachy

Ugh it's so frustrating The story is nice and engaging but I really don't enjoy the way the independence vs respect and bold vs patient plays out. You can spend a large portion of the game choosing independent choices but then have it plummet back to reliable with a few choices of dialogue, blocking you out of later dialogue options by what could be just a small percentile. Likewise, decisions unlocked through playing boldly hardly ever come up. It's very imbalanced. Drives me crazy.

We need more stories like this. Great story. I loved the representation of race and genders. The plot was amazing, and I didn't see a lot of the twists coming. Well-worth the money I spent to support the writer, get a good story, and great replay value. Plus choose your own adventures? Yes.